Category Archives: civic infrastructure

ILG TIERS Learning Lab Training Early Bird Now Available

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If you work in local government and are looking to gain some more skills when engaging the public, then we recommend folks check out this great training from NCDD member org, the Institute for Local Government (ILG). ILG is offering their two-day TIERS Learning Lab training on Thursday, April 25th and Friday, April 26th in Danville, CA. This is a great opportunity for staff and elected officials working in local government to better engage and sustain their public engagement efforts, and early bird registration ends in two weeks, on March 22nd. You can read the announcement from ILG below and find the original version here.

TIERS Public Engagement Learning Lab – April 25 & 26 in Danville, CA

Upcoming Learning Lab & Registration
Danville, April 25 & 26, 2019
REGISTER HERE

Early Bird Registration ends March 22nd
Registration deadline is April 5th

For more information or to register contact Hanna Stelmakhovych at publicengagement@ca-ilg.org or call (916) 658-8221.

ILG’s TIERS Can Help Your Agency Take Your Public Engagement to the Next Level

Not getting the results you want from your public engagement efforts? Enroll in the Institute for Local Government’s (ILG) TIERS Public Engagement Learning Lab and receive customized coaching and learn a step-by-step framework to successfully plan and implement your next public engagement effort. This comprehensive training and coaching program is available to any city, county, special district and can apply to a variety of efforts ranging from housing and climate change to budgeting and public safety.

ILG will be hosting a TIERS℠Public Engagement Learning Lab on April 25-26, 2019 in Danville. Learn more about the TIERS Public Engagement Learning Lab, pricing and future training opportunities here: www.ca-ilg.org/tierslearninglab.

Learning Lab Overview
The TIERS Learning Lab is a comprehensive training and coaching program from ILG that provides local government teams of 2-5 individuals with hands-on instruction and coaching on the TIERS Framework. By participating in the TIERS Learning Lab, staff and electeds will learn how to utilize, customize and implement the TIERS tools and processes. The TIERS Learning Lab will help you build and manage successful public engagement in order to support local government work, stakeholder input and project success.

TIERS Learning Lab Components
The TIERS Learning Lab consists of training and support over a six month period for an agency team of up to five people. This six-month hands-on coaching opportunity includes:

  • A pretraining consultation with ILG to discuss your goals, plans and challenges; and to select your Learning Lab public engagement case
  • Immersive two-day Learning Lab: hands-on, participatory in-person training with expert coaches and peer learning
  • Post-training customized implementation coaching (up to 6 hours)
  • Monthly ’Open Lab’ for problem solving during the three months post training
  • Training workshop materials and meals
  • Scheduling and coordination of consulting calls for pre and post training

Register Now for April 2019 TIERS Public Engagement Learning Lab!

“The TIERS training was incredibly motivating for our team and we were able to immediately put what we learned about the TIERS process to work on our current projects. We left with best practices and a clear process we can follow”
– Mayor Gurrola, City of Arvin

You can find the original information of this training on ILG’s site at: www.ca-ilg.org/TIERSLearningLab.

Engaging Everyday Individuals for Better Public Policy

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A driving force behind much work in the D&D field is centered around the belief that individuals are the expert of their own experiences and should be the key consultants in shaping the policies that shape their own lives. The Jefferson Center – a NCDD sponsor org, shared an article on their blog this week, How can everyday citizens create better public policy? by Annie Pottorff, which offers tips on bringing in “everyday” individuals during policymaking. The article gives several key insights on why this is important and talks more about how the process of Citizen Juries can increase civic participation and more direct democratic practices. You can read the article below and find the original version on the Jefferson Center blog here.

How can everyday citizens create better public policy?

Each election, the United States Congress looks a little bit more like the country it represents. In 2018, we celebrated a record number of congressional firsts, including the youngest woman elected, first Muslim congresswomen, first Native American congresswomen, and many other ‘firsts’.

While representation is improving, there are still clear differences according to Pew: the share of women, people of color, and immigrants in the House and Senate lags behind the overall US population. Congress members are also typically highly educated and wealthier than the general public. These distinctions show a clear mismatch, and lead us to wonder: how can we better include diverse experiences, perspectives, and aspirations in decision-making?
Direct democracy approaches, including Citizens Juries, invite “everyday” people (like you, your neighbor, and your grandma) to participate. By using our incredibly different life experiences and personal expertise to shape public policy, we can create a more representative, transparent, and trusted democracy.

Turning to “Everyday” Experts

Average citizens have an incredible resource too often overlooked: their unique expertise. In the current Congress, 96% of House members and all senators have a bachelor’s degree or higher. But in 2017, only about a third (34%) of American adults 25 and older said they had completed a bachelor’s degree or more, according to Pew.

But education and degrees shouldn’t determine your contribution to democracy. Most of us have been shaped by our work, travel, volunteering, relationships, and more, in addition to traditional schooling. Within a Citizens Jury, you’ll find people of all education levels working together to create recommendations to a given challenge.

Participants have the rare opportunity to listen to one another, hear different perspectives, build off one another’s ideas, empathize, and establish common ground. This helps Jurors create recommendations that utilize one another’s expertise and experiences, and are more representative of the population as a whole.

Listening to the People Most Impacted

Last summer, we conducted a Citizens Jury in the Forest of Dean, United Kingdom. Two local hospitals, which were closely intertwined with the community, were set to close. The National Health Service wanted to hear from residents on where a new, centrally located hospital should be built.

Citizen input isn’t always clearly invited (or even welcomed) by representatives in similar situations. People may not be able to travel to their representative’s office, and if they do get there, their representatives might be booked or have other issues on the agenda. In the Forest of Dean, while the closure of the hospital was a sensitive topic for many, a Citizens Jury helped create a recommendation for the location new hospital that was actually trusted by the wider community.

As one participant put it, “People trust the outcome a lot more, they think there’s a fairer representation of views and that the people who are actually going to be using the hospital have a chance to give some insight into their needs which should be valuable feedback for the decision makers.”

Making Participation More Accessible

Getting informed on local, state, national, and global issues can take a lot of time that many people simply don’t have. Citizens Juries, meanwhile, pay people to participate and cover things such as childcare expenses, so participants can more easily take time to participate.

Juries also make participation easier for young people. In the United States, Senators have to be at least 30, and House Representatives must be over 25. And even though people younger than 25 will obviously be impacted by many of today’s issues, barriers such as moving often, work, and difficulty registering to vote all present big obstacles to civic participation. Citizens Juries typically invite participants 18 and older, providing much needed insight into these missing perspectives.

Free from Outside Influence

Instead of the policy issue at hand, politicians might be focused on winning the next election, gaining favorable public opinion, or keeping campaign funders happy.

But your average person isn’t usually worried about these issues. And if there’s ever extra pressure felt by Jury members from their peers, participants can remain anonymous. The experts that inform Jurors about the topic don’t advocate for a specific stance, but provide neutral background information for participants to reference. This sets the stage for more trusted policy, as Jurors made their decision based on high quality information and a transparent process.

Combining Direct & Representative Democracy

Wider citizen participation can complement representative democracies around the world: we’d more fully capture the range of citizen ideas and hear from underrepresented groups. Officials would have a much clearer picture of what the public thinks on complex issues, instead of just hearing from the loudest voices in the room.

Although Citizens Juries don’t always create immediate policy adoption, the recommendations guide legislation and community initiatives. These recommendations aren’t influenced by money or power, but represent the aspirations, interests, and needs of everyday people, creating a stronger democracy we can all believe in.

You can find the original version of this article on the Jefferson Center blog at https://jefferson-center.org/2019/03/how-can-everyday-citizens-create-better-public-policy/

Explore D&D Future in New Cosmopolis2045 Website

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Imagine a world in which communication practices are centered in social interactions and the way society operates, where the whole community lives dialogue and deliberation practices every day?

This is the vision for the exciting new website that just officially launched – Cosmopolis2045, which offers a vision of a future communication-centric society in the year 2045. This project has been an on-going, multi-year collaborative effort between scholars, practitioners, and community members; you may remember we announced this endeavor several years back on the blog and it’s wonderful to see this come to fruition. Thanks to NCDD member Kim Pearce for sharing this update with us! We encourage you to read more in the post below and especially to explore the future vision of the Cosmopolis2045 website here.

Cosmopolis2045: Imagining a better social world in which communicating matters

What if a whole community treated relationships with other people as if they really mattered? What if a whole community took dialogue and deliberation seriously? And what if that community tried with all their hearts to bring about a better social world in all the myriad of ways we engage in communication with others in our world?

These were the questions asked by a group of scholars and practitioners sponsored by the CMM Institute, a NCDD member organization. The Cosmopolis2045 website is their answer, visit https://cosmopolis2045.com/

The Cosmopolis2045 website depicts an imagined community set in the future (circa 2045) in which residents and leaders of the community have adopted a communication-centric view of how their own and other social worlds function. This website offers an intriguing look at a possible near future in which dialogue and deliberation are an integral part of everyday community events and are at the heart of city functioning. The website is also an information-rich resource for teaching classes on communication, especially cosmopolitan communication and for exploring the implications of a communication-centric view for a range of educational, legal, governance, and associated community practices.

Behind the scenes

How might we, as scholars, practitioners, citizens and all those concerned with the quality of our social life, respond to such an invitation?

What might it take to act wisely, if only for the moment, in our response?

What resources, stories and other experiences do we have to draw on to respond?

What can we share with others that might enhance all our capacities to act wisely in the making of better social worlds?

Those are the questions we asked ourselves as we set about imagining a community where a new social fabric could emerge out of treating communicating seriously.

In this section, we give you behind-the-scenes information which addresses the above questions. Our starting vision and guiding theory are described in Inspiration for the Cosmopolis2045 project. Here we also outline the futurist research we drew upon; elaborate at greater length on our “non-utopian” attempts at being visionaries; and describe what we mean by cosmopolitan communication.

The Cosmopolis2045 project is a collaborative thought experiment that has involved an international group of scholars and sponsors. These people and organisations are described in Collaborators and sponsors.

If any particular topic or underlying theory attracts your attention please go to Want to know more? Here we offer introductory background material on the Coordinated Management of Meaning, our guiding theory. We also include references and websites to a range of supporting material from futurist research to pedagogy, to sustainable food practices and procedural justice, and more. You can also find links to like-minded websites, scholars and practitioners. All these references and links show the breadth and depth of social change going on now and how much our vision for the near future is possible and not far removed from reality.

Inspiration for Cosmopolis2045

The Cosmopolis2045 project has been a collaborative thought experiment involving many people and taking place over a number of years. It is, in fact, still on-going.

The website depicting our vision of Cosmopolis is one, but not all, manifestation of our response to the challenge of how do you envision better social worlds, knowing that there is no “best” goal outside of the very process of communicating itself.

Here we offer some of the behind-the-scenes material that, hopefully, explains how we responded to the challenge we set ourselves. We lay this out under three themes:

What we are trying to achieve

 Our goal with this website is to create and maintain a virtual depiction of a community set in the future (circa 2045) in which residents and leaders of the community have adopted a communication-centric view of how their own and other social worlds function. It is our belief, and one that can be substantiated, that this communication-centric view is what we need for the evolution of better social worlds.

However, we have found, as scholars, practitioners and involved citizens, that this communication-centric view is not one commonly shared. Mainstream communication theories, both formal and implicit, narrowly focus on the content and quality of messages, along with an implicit assumption that successful communication is the receipt of an unsullied message or the creation of shared understanding.

Our primary challenge, then, in creating the imaginary world of Cosmopolis2045, has been to depict ways of living in communicating that many have not imagined and others only in part. On the other hand, we also know from our collective experiences that there are many social change initiatives happening around the world that point the ways to meet this challenge.

In our imagination we have drawn together many of the social change initiatives and woven them within a communication perspective“loom”. And in doing this, we have created new imaginings of what can happen if we treat communicating seriously.

The stories, the new social institutions and the dialogic practices of the citizens and leaders in our imagined community have been developed to point to new ways and new possibilities for personal and social evolution. Given the local and global challenges we all face in the 21stcentury, we hope our new imaginings offer some hope and some new directions to explore.

Our guiding theory

The Theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) is the primary impetus behind the Cosmopolis 2045 Project. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen at the University of Massachusetts developed CMM theory in the late 1970s. The seminal expressions of the theory can be found in Pearce and Cronen’s Communication, Action and Meaning: The Creation of Social Realities (Praeger, 1980), Pearce’s Communication and the Human Condition (Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), Pearce and Littlejohn’s Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide (Sage, 1997), and Pearce’s Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective (Blackwell, 2009).

A more comprehensive account and further references on CMM can be found in Want to know more?

CMM is premised on the belief that the social worlds we inhabit are constructed in the many diverse forms of everyday communication we engage in. Put simply, we live in communication. CMM, which can perhaps best be described as a “practical theory,” provides heuristic tools for understanding the ways in which we do this living-in-communication. The same tools and broader communication perspective can also guide mindful practice in communicating.

We believe that the communication perspective offered by CMM has greater potential to meet the challenges of the contemporary global environment than narrower, instrumental beliefs in which the process of communication is taken to be immaterial or insignificant. The latter views of communication are, in particular, unable to address the many challenges arising from distinct, if not colliding, cultural values and patterns of behavior that abound in our contemporary world. From our CMM perspective, these cultural challenges need to be coordinated and navigated rather than subjected to efforts at persuasion or clarity of meaning (i.e., as reflected in the dominant Western paradigm for theorizing about communication).

CMM proposes that creating and sustaining a cosmopolitan form of cultural communication is a better model for communicating with diverse others than extant models such as monocultural, ethnocentric, or modernistic forms of communication (see Want to know more?). The Cosmopolis 2045 website is designed to render one expression of what cosmopolitan cultural patterns might look like in the everyday life of a community.

By definition, cosmopolitan cultural patterns bring about an environment in which humans thrive, both in terms of personal and social evolution. This culture is characterized by one in which the members:

  • hold a communication-centric view of social worlds, recognizing that their social worlds (i.e., relationships, selves, groups, episodes, and culture itself) are “made” and “remade” in everyday communication patterns
  • value their own cultural traditions, beliefs and values yet recognize that, except for the accident of birth, they would likely hold some other set of beliefs and values (thus are profoundly open to the value of other traditions)
  • treat “others” (strangers, non-members of their community) with engaged curiosity, seeing them simultaneously as “different from us” (in that may they have different values or social practices), and yet “like us” (in that both of our beliefs and practices are socially made). In this way, each of our “ways of being” are treated as partial expressions of what it means to be human
  • understand that they live in multiple social worlds and are able to draw resources from several social worlds in constructing new ones
  • are able to make conscious choices about what forms of life they wish to enact in given situations
  • work collectively as citizens to make their social worlds better places to live—they see designing their public life together as an indication of “conscious evolution”
  • believe that patterns of life that are not productive or helpful can be altered through conscious collective effort.
  • have developed skills for “making better social worlds,” including: framing and reframing; identifying and choosing wisely how to act into (as well as out of) contexts; sensing the flow and rhythms of “logical forces” (deontic logic of should/ought); identifying/creating “bifurcation points” and acting wisely into them.

Projecting futures and making better social worlds

Cosmopolis 2045 is a collaborative thought-experiment, a partnership in imagining a plausible version of a future social world(s), particularly if we act wisely in dealing with the trends and counter-trends already happening around us.

“Futurists” have been projecting worlds of tomorrow for ages. In developing Cosmopolis, we consulted many sources on future trends in technology, medicine, work and economics, politics, education, and many other aspects of social life. In our Research the Future topic in Want to know more? we share some of that research, identify books you can read, or connect you to websites that summarize future trends.

In using this research, we wanted to make sure that how we depict a fictional future in 2045 is plausible, according to the best research and projections. Among other things, that research suggested that dialogic communication—that found in cosmopolitan cultures—could be an important driver of change; where the change is to what one future scenario group called a “transformed world”. For a fascinating review of this research, see Barnett Pearce’s essay “Reflections on the role of dialogic communication in transforming the world”.

In this “transformed world” there is a vision of shared power in which grassroots organisations co-operate effectively and in which sustainable development, socially, economically and environmentally, is a collective goal.  And while we have drawn on the ideas projected for such a transformed world we have also consciously tried to avoid making Cosmopolis an unrealistic or impossibly utopian vision.

You can find the original version of this information on the Cosmopolis2045 site at www.cosmopolis2045.com/.

Upcoming Opportunities at Tufts’ Tisch College of Civic Life

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NCDDer Peter Levine shared this on the NCDD Main Discussion listserv yesterday and we wanted to lift it up here for the larger network. There are a lot of fantastic opportunities happening at Tisch College this year that we encourage you to check out! Some highlights – proposals are now being accepted for 2019 Frontiers of Democracy (June 20-22), applications are also being accepted for The Summer Institute of Civic Studies at Tisch and an opportunity to receive a postdoctoral fellowship, and more!

The NCDD Main Discussion listserv is a great place for engaging with folks passionate about dialogue, deliberation, and engagement! Learn how to join this list here.

Opportunities at Tufts’ Tisch College of Civic Life for Summer 2019

Please consider applying or submitting proposals for one or more of these 2019 opportunities

Join Free Webinar on NY Public Library Community Conversations Program, 12/5

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Last year, we announced a two-year partnership with the American Library Association on a new initiative, Libraries Transforming Communities: Models for Change, which sought to train librarians in dialogue and deliberation processes with the goal of turning libraries into spaces of civic engagement and community discussions. We invite you to join a free one hour webinar on December 5th on how the New York Public Library created their Community Conversations series pilot to support the community in addressing important issues. In this webinar, you’ll learn how they developed the 11-month training program for librarians in 16 branches, tailored the conversation series to what the community needed, and implemented the series to deepen the libraries’ role as civic centers. You can read the announcement below and sign up to join the webinar here.

Community Conversations Across Neighborhoods: Dialogue-Driven Programming

Libraries have the potential to inspire local dialogue on timely issues across communities, positioning library staff as trusted facilitators. Join us for this free one-hour webinar to hear how New York Public Library created a conversation series on important issues in the diverse communities they serve.

In February 2017, the New York Public Library (NYPL) launched a Community Conversations pilot with the goal of further establishing branch libraries as key civic convening centers, providing space, information and quality discussion for communities to better understand and problem-solve around local issues.

Aligning with the ALA Public Programs Office’s Libraries Transforming Communities initiative, NYPL’s Adult Programming and Outreach Services (ORS) Office developed an original 11-month training program with staff from 16 branch libraries that resulted in a series of unique, community-led programs.

Program boundaries were kept flexible enough for branch staff to be able to design programs with their own diverse neighborhood communities in mind. Branches experimented with a variety of tactics to ensure community focus, including community issue voting boards, a public planning committee, community-mapping and final program sessions that invited attendees to discuss next steps.

Participants of this session will learn:

  • Best practices and lessons learned from NYPL’s Community Conversations programming
  • How to launch successful location-based Community Conversations initiatives that build partnerships and engage staff in new ways
  • Specific dialogue-driven program models that can be used as templates for programs in libraries across geographic locations

Presenters
Alexandra Kelly Berman is the manager of adult programming and outreach services at the New York Public Library, where she works with library staff across 88 neighborhood branches to introduce programs for local adult communities, including the recent Community Conversations pilot. Alexandra began at NYPL by developing and leading the successful multi-branch Community Oral History Project. Before working at NYPL, she was a facilitator at StoryCorps and received an M.A. from the School of Media Studies at The New School, where she also acted as director of student services + engagement. She has also launched several youth media projects around New York City, including an oral history project in Crown Heights, The Engage Media Lab program at The New School, and a documentary filmmaking project at Brooklyn Children’s Museum.

Andrew Fairweather is a librarian at the New York Public Library’s Seward Park branch in the Lower East Side. He is fervent in his belief that the library can serve as a unique platform for discussion about tricky issues and current events. He enjoys painting and drawing when not occupied with library work. Andrew’s interest in any one subject is incredibly unfaithful — he will read (most) anything as a result.

Nancy Aravecz is a senior adult librarian at the Jefferson Market branch of The New York Public Library. In this role, she focuses on providing top-notch discussion-based programming to the Greenwich Village community, centered around information literacy, technology, current events and classic works of literature. She is a recent graduate of Kent State University’s MLIS program, where she studied digital libraries. She also holds a previous MA degree in English Language and Letters from New York University, where her studies centered around literary theory and criticism, postcolonial studies and the digital humanities.

Related Learning Opportunities:

You can find the original version of this announcement on the Programming Librarian website (part of the American Library Association Public Programs Office) at www.programminglibrarian.org/learn/community-conversations-across-neighborhoods-dialogue-driven-programming.

Exciting New Book on 30 Years of Participatory Budgeting

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For our participatory budgeting enthusiasts out there (and we know there are a lot of you!), NCDD member org – the Participatory Budgeting Project, recently shared the exciting new book, Hope for Democracy: 30 years of participatory budgeting worldwide. The 600-page volume, edited by Nelson Dias, features over 60 authors on their experiences with PB across the world over the last 30 years and offers great insights for how to further grow the PB movement. We are thrilled to note that folks are able to download this book for free! You can read more about it in the post below and find the original announcement on the PBP site here.

Hope for Democracy: A New Book Reflects on 30 Years of Participatory Budgeting

An expansive new volume edited by Nelson Dias features dispatches by more than 60 authors from the frontlines of participatory budgeting’s (PB) growth around the world. This book, Hope for Democracy, could not have come out at a better time for PB supporters in North America. Next year will mark 10 years of PB in the US and new opportunities to take PB to the next level: a big citywide process approved in NYC, hundreds of new school PB processes, and growing political interest in strengthening democracy.

To make the most of these great opportunities to revitalize democracy, we need to first learn from PB’s growth internationally. Dias and his collaborators deliver countless insights in their 600-page panorama. (Download the book for free here.)

We lift up the biggest lessons below…

Why have Hope for Democracy?
Dias begins with an overview of key trends in PB as it spread from Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989 to over 7,000 localities around the world. PB experts Brian Wampler, Stephanie McNulty, and Michael Touchton note how in Brazil during the 1990s, leftist politicians and activists championed PB as a radical project to “broaden the confines of representative democracy, mobilize followers, and achieve greater social justice” (p. 55); over time, it attracted support from a wide range of actors, including international organizations like the World Bank, because of its potential to improve governance and promote civic engagement. Giovanni Allegretti and Kalinca Copello discuss how, as PB spread internationally, new processes often committed fewer funds, whether measured as lower PB spending per person or as a smaller share of PB in the overall budgets (p. 45).

Benjamin Goldfrank and Katherine Landes examine how this trend has played out in the U.S. and Canada. They report that PB has expanded more slowly than other regions in terms of the number of cities implementing it, the amount of participants, and the volume of funds (p. 161). Yet, Goldfrank and Landes demonstrate this is not due to a lack of public interest: “we find that where PB allocates larger pots of money, the rate of participation tends to be higher” (p. 172). In other words, the more dollars that a PB process allocates, the more people care about it. Moreover, two bright spots on the horizon indicate that PB may grow faster in coming years: its mounting presence in schools and its rising appeal among progressive activists and politicians.

In the light of the recent victories in NYC—PB in all public high schools and citywide PB approved into the city charter—this watershed may be closer than the Goldfrank and Landes anticipated. Chapters on Paris, Russia, and Portugal offer additional insights on how to scale up PB in North America.

Paris offers a model of PB going big
Paris currently runs the largest PB process in the world. Similar to NYC’s coming city-wide process, PB in Paris was championed by a progressive mayor, Anne Hidalgo, who successfully campaigned on bringing PB to Paris in her 2014 election. Mayor Hidalgo wasted no time in implementing her plan of dedicating 5% of the city’s capital budget to PB over the first five years (That’s roughly 500 million euros!). Tiago Peixoto and colleagues use the Paris case to study large-scale issues, like whether online voting improves the process or biases it towards more privileged residents. Their research finds that voting patterns between online voters and those who vote in person are remarkably similar.

PB in Russia innovates, expands rapidly
In 2015, Russia experienced a turning point after which the number of PB processes grew surprisingly fast. This occurred when the Ministry of Finance noted the positive outcomes in regional PB processes and created a framework known as Initiative Financing. The next year, 8,732 PB projects were implemented. By 2018, half of all regional governments in the country (the equivalent of U.S. states) decided to set up PB programs.

Why did so many regions begin PB so quickly, when the federal government did not provide financial incentives to do so? Ivan Shulga and Vladimir Vagin emphasize how the central framework and technical assistance provided by the Ministry of Finance and the World Bank made regional implementation much easier. These processes also made use of some innovative institutional designs. In some programs, municipalities, businesses, organizations, and citizens pledged to co-finance projects, increasing their chance of receiving regional funding. Another program used a form of sortition or citizen jury, in which a cohort of volunteer budget delegates was randomly selected, to work with experts to turn project ideas into full-fledged and feasible proposals.

Portugal leads the way with national PB
Portugal was the first country to run nation-wide PB. While the process is not particularly large in terms of public participation or budget, it does provide one model of a large-scale institutional design that bridges disparate regions.

Roberto Falanga outlines how the process collected nearly 1,000 ideas from each part of the country in 50 assemblies and winnowed them down into viable proposals for a vote. The process did not use budget delegates to revise the proposals. While this may streamline the process, it runs the risk of giving experts and officials more power than public participants. However, an effort was made to minimize this danger by requiring detailed reasons for rejecting proposals and re-including ones that could be revised and made feasible. Still, proposals that were backed by informal social networks may have received undue prominence. For example a bullfighting project won funding even though a majority of the Portuguese public believes that the practice should be banned.

Reflecting on what’s been done, ready for more
It’s an exciting moment to get involved with PB. And it’s an important time to reflect on how far different regions have taken PB. While there are currently around 100 active processes in the U.S. and Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean hosts around 2,500 processes and Europe 3,500. We have some catching up to do.

Donate here to help PB grow.

You can find the original version of this announcement on the Participatory Budgeting Project’s site at www.participatorybudgeting.org/hope-for-democracy-a-new-book-reflects-on-30-years-of-participatory-budgeting/.

Democracy Fund Creates New Team to Support Strategic Investment in our Democracy

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Hot off the digital press! Democracy Fund, an NCDD 2018 sponsor, announced this morning they are building a new team dedicated to being a better resource for donors and the field; in order to support strategic efforts to invest in our country’s democracy. Currently, there is very little funding given to those working to improve our democracy, and it is vital to invest resources to those doing this work if our democracy is to survive. Democracy Fund is seeking a Director of Partnerships to lead this newly created team and stay tuned for the program rollout which will offer investment strategy resources, educational events, and joint funding opportunities.

On a related note, if you are looking to support an organization working to further democracy then consider donating to NCDD! We are one of the leading organizations that work to foster the D&D field and support those working to actualize a truer democracy. This Giving Tuesday, Facebook will match your donations – so double your impact and donate tomorrow through our NCDD FB page here! We encourage you to read the announcement below and find the original on Democracy Fund’s site here.

Building a Team to Invest in Democracy

Following the 2016 election, Democracy Fund heard from many philanthropists seeking advice on what they can do to respond to the threats facing our political system. For some, the last two years have brought a newly pervasive sense that our democracy is under threat and that our political system is far more fragile than most of us assumed. We feel the same way, and we are humbled that interested donors and their advisors are turning to us and to our peers for guidance.

Through our efforts to support these new partners, we discovered that Democracy Fund can play a helpful role in providing advice and connections to philanthropists who are learning about the field. To that end, I am delighted to share that we are building a new team at Democracy Fund to help us be a better resource to philanthropists, advisors, and our peers. The team will be led by a newly created position, the Director of Partnerships. (Read and share the job description here.)

This swell in philanthropic interest comes at a pivotal time. Despite a clear and pressing need, the level of philanthropic support for this field remains critically low. Whether you look at voting, journalism, or civic education, many of the most capable and innovative organizations in the space have struggled through multiple cycles of feast and famine and need more resources to meet the challenges at hand.

To make progress on issues that are important to the American people and to ensure the health of our democracy for future generations, the United States needs deep investment by philanthropists and advocates. Policy reforms ranging from the future of affordable housing to climate change depend on a political system that is responsive to the public. A more equitable society requires eliminating barriers to voting and reducing the influence of money on politics. And improving the ability of individuals and communities to thrive rests on a functioning government, fair enforcement of the rule of law, and stability in our politics. Despite the reality that progress hinges on a healthy democracy, the field receives less than two percent of overall philanthropic giving.

Building a healthier democracy together

Working with our peer funders, we hope the Democracy Fund Partnerships team can be a resource to donors and to the field. Our goal is to make the expert capacity of our staff and our collaborative approach available to interested philanthropists. We believe that enlisting greater philanthropic energy, ideas, and resources to the fields in which we work is one of the most effective ways for us to meet the scale of the challenge.

Our new team will educate and engage philanthropists who are new to democracy with the goal of helping them to enter the field. Led by the Director of Partnerships, the team will help donors and their advisors make strategic decisions to invest in our country’s democracy. It will take some time and experimentation to build this program, but there are a few things you should expect to see:

  • Resources: Democracy Fund will work with our peers to develop resources that help new donors to better understand the space, including investment guides highlighting the most innovative and high-impact strategies and organizations in the field. The Foundation Center’s data tool for the democracy field is an excellent example of the kind of resource we have helped create in the past that can help philanthropists understand the existing landscape.
  • Educational Events: Over the past 18 months, Democracy Fund has partnered with the Giving Pledge to educate members of that network about opportunities to strengthen democracy in the United States. We expect to organize more briefings and workshops like those we organized with Giving Pledge to inform new donors.
  • Joint Funds: Democracy Fund participates in and has created several collaborative funds that enable donors to easily contribute to vetted, highly effective grantees working to protect the health of our government, elections, and free press. Our Public Square program, for example, works with other journalism funders through NewsMatch, the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund, and the Community Listening and Engagement Fund. We aim to work with our peers to develop other similar funds that make it easier for new donors to enter the space.

Our Commitment to the Field

Our new efforts to build philanthropic partnerships will not slow our existing efforts to deploy our resources to support the field. Since Democracy Fund began, we have committed more than $100 million in grants and built a team of more than 45 people with deep expertise on issues ranging from journalism and elections to Congress and government accountability. Thanks to the generosity and leadership of Pierre Omidyar we intend to continue to invest at a similar level in the coming years.

At the same time, our commitment to our existing grantees will not limit our advice to new donors – we hope to help philanthropists find their own path into the field, whether or not it mirrors the path that we have chosen.

We are grateful for the mentorship and ongoing partnership of many foundations who have supported this field for decades, including the Knight Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund. At such a deeply important moment for our country, we are excited to begin this important work and will continue to share our progress as the team grows and the program develops.

You can find the original version of this announcement on Democracy Fund’s site at www.democracyfund.org/blog/entry/building-a-team-to-invest-in-democracy.

Opportunity for Students to Join Youth Collaboratory by 11/13

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In case you missed it, Citizen University is accepting applications until this Tuesday for their 2019 Youth Collaboratory cohort! The Youth Collaboratory is an exciting opportunity for 24 high school sophomores and juniors, passionate about civic engagement, to join this year-long program to strengthen civic literacy and network with civic leaders. Applications are due November 13th – so make sure to share with your networks and submit applications by this coming Tuesday. You can read more about the Youth Collaboratory and how to apply in the post below, and find the original version of this information on Citizen University’s site here.

Empowering the Rising Generation: Youth Collaboratory

The Youth Collaboratory is a year-long program for 24 highly-motivated students from around the country who are passionate about civic engagement and making a positive change in their communities and country. The Youth Collaboratory is one component of Citizen University’s Youth Power Project, a multi-year effort supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation to empower and connect a rising generation of civic leaders and doers. The application for the 2019 Youth Collaboratory is open now!

The application due date is Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 11:59pm PT. For details about the program, including a PDF of all application questions – read more below. If you have questions about this application, please contact Ben Phillips at ben@citizenuniversity.us.

Learn More About the Youth Collaboratory 

Members of the 2019 Youth Collaboratory will spend the year sharpening their literacy in civic power while traveling to cities around the nation and meeting with national civic innovators. They participate in interactive workshops led by Eric Liu and Citizen University educators, collaborate with CU staff to develop, test, and optimize programs to engage youth nation-wide, and individually complete independent projects in their communities. This is a unique and exciting opportunity to be connected to a network of incredible change-makers and gain the skills and connections for a lifetime of civic power.

The Youth Collaboratory program includes:

  • Travel, accommodations, and meals to attend three meetings of the Youth Collaboratory in 2019:
    • Feb. 20-22 in Malibu, CA
    • May 15-17 in Chicago, IL
    • Sept. 11-13 in Washington, DC
  • Tools and workshop trainings to become powerful, engaged citizen leaders
  • Connections with civic innovators and mentors
  • Connections with other student leaders and innovators from around the country

Who is eligible:

  • Applicants must be current high school sophomores or juniors
  • Applicants must live in the United States
  • Applicants must be able to attend all three of the Youth Collaboratory meetings (We are aware that the May dates conflict with certain Advanced Placement (AP) testing dates. There is a place on the application to indicate any AP tests you are taking, and we will make arrangements as possible.)
  • Students who come from backgrounds that historically have less access to power and civic opportunity are especially encouraged to apply, specifically young people of color, immigrants, and young women.

Application:

  • The application deadline is November 13, 2018 at 11:59pm Pacific Time
  • View a PDF of the application here
  • Apply now

Please contact Ben Phillips at ben@citizenuniversity.us with any questions.

In this era of economic and political inequality, the work of power literacy is especially urgent, nowhere more so than in the rising generation of young people who will be facing the consequences of today’s polarization and inequality for years to come. Armed with the knowledge, skills, connections, and experience of the Youth Collaboratory, our diverse cohort of passionate young people will be prepared to be true leaders of civic change in America for the next generation.

Past Participants

The 2019 cohort of the Youth Collaboratory is the third cohort of this exciting and innovative program. In the first two years of the program, participants came from over 20 states representing every region of the country, with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Here is some of what they had to say about the Youth Collaboratory:

“The highlight was getting to meet with the Civic Collaboratory, to really connect to people in the successful, professional world and talk to them about the issues and projects that they’re working on. It’s really inspiring.”

“I was shocked at the space we created, that we allowed each other to feel safe expressing our opinions and views.”

“I was so pleased to be welcomed into a group that taught me how to be the best civic version of myself that I could be.”

Follow Citizen University on social media, to learn more about the Youth Collaboratory and other programs!

You can find the original version of this information on the Citizen University site at www.citizenuniversity.us/programs/youth-power-project/.

The 2018 Civvy Awardees Announced – CSU Center for Public Deliberation Ties for Local Winner!

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Exciting news – the winners of the 2018 American Civic Collaboration awards (a.k.a. The Civvys), were announced at the National Conference in Citizenship last week! Granted to those doing high-collaboration work that transcends political division, we invite you to join us in wishing the awardees a big congratulations! Several NCDDers were listed as finalists and we are proud to see the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation, founded and directed by NCDD Board Chair Martin Carcasson, tie for Local Winner! You can read the announcement below and find the original version here.

Celebrating 2018 Civvys Winners

On October 18, 2018 at the National Conference in Citizenship in Washington, D.C., six inspiring initiatives were honored as winners of the 2018 American Civic Collaboration awards.

The six winners and 23 finalists represent outstanding examples of collaborative work that elevate democracy and civic engagement, at every level of American life. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, these organizations are working hard to build a better future, and inspire others to do the same.

Meet the 2018 winners in each category:

NATIONAL WINNER: iCivics

iCivics is a leader in the field of civic education, paving the way for students to learn about their nation through innovative curriculum that includes games, digital interactives, surveys and teacher resources. More than 200,000 teachers use iCivics games and resources to educate and engage 5 million K-12 students in all 50 states, and the organization is committed to doubling its reach by the year 2020. In the words of Civvys judge and 2017 National Winner Jody Thomas, “This organization hits all the right notes and they have the metrics to back it up.”

LOCAL WINNER – TIE: Interfaith Works NY El Hindi Center for Dialogue; Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation

The El-Hindi Center for Dialogue at Interfaith Works in Central New York was nominated for their outstanding work in a variety of programs, most notably an initiative bridging the gap in understanding between the Syracuse Police Department and the local community. Their immediate and lasting impact presents a model for other communities to follow. Civvys judge Michele Holt-Shannon, who was also a 2017 Local winner, pointed out “the use of multiracial, multilingual facilitators expands the impact of the dialogues.”

As a pioneering model adopted by other universities, the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation operates under the belief that universities play a key role in not just providing quality information or training informed citizens, but in elevating the quality of communication in their communities. They provide forums for citizen engagement, connection and empowerment – improving outcomes for the students involved, the local community, the faculty bringing together theory and practice, and the university as a convener.

YOUTH WINNER: FIRST VOTE NC

First Vote NC believes that if students have an opportunity to practice voting, it will become a habit. They have built a track record of success with their virtual voting platform and civics lessons, which provide education, information, and room for engagement, while de-emphasizing the right versus wrong nature of today’s politics in favor of understanding how perspectives differ because of a myriad of factors. Through a mobilized network of teachers using the platform, the work of First Vote has reached over 40,000 students in 46 counties.

POLITICAL WINNER: MAINE RANK CHOICE VOTING EDUCATION EFFORT

This year, the Chamberlain Project Foundation and the Foundation for Independent Voter Education launched a joint effort in Maine to make sure voters were comfortable and aware of ranked choice voting, which helps broaden candidate pools beyond two parties, increase voter turnout and give more power to each vote. Their work created a transformational change in the way the state of Maine elects its leaders, what Civvys judge David Sawyer called “a game changer for the nation, breaking the polarization paradigm.” Two other judges called this work “an essential experiment” in the “laboratory of democracy.”

COMMITTEE CHOICE AWARD: MONTEVALLO JUNIOR CITY COUNCIL

In 2012, eight middle-schoolers in a small, rural Alabama community approached their mayor to start the first-ever Junior City Council in their town. Through the work of these young people, they established themselves as a political body, and their president sits on the dais at all City Council Meetings to represent the youth voice. The JCC hosts deliberative forums, developed a merchant discount card for teens and convened a mayoral debate, among other activities. Their nomination, submitted by an adult, noted, “In the decade I have worked in civic engagement, I have never seen a group of young people be given as much real power to make positive change in their community.”

You can find the original version of this on The Civvy’s site at www.civvys.org/the-2018-civvys-1/.

Submit Application for NCL’s 2019 All-American City Awards

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It’s that time again! Applications are now being accepted for the 2019 All-American City Awards until March 5th, 2019. Hosted by the National Civic League, an NCDD partner and conference sponsor, the award will be given to the communities working towards improving health equity through inclusive civic engagement. We encourage you to watch the video from the 2018 awardees with tips on applying and how the award has benefitted their communities. You can read the announcement below and find the original version on NCL’s site here.

Creating Healthy Communities Through Inclusive Civic Engagement

The National Civic League invites you to apply for the All-America City Award – the nation’s most prestigious community award, now in its 70th year.

The AAC Award offers the opportunity for both recognition and reflection. Applications require communities to come together to assess their strengths and challenges. The 2019 All-America City Award is focused on celebrating examples of civic engagement practices that advance health equity in local communities. We are looking for communities that demonstrate inclusive decision-making processes to create better health for all, and particularly for populations currently experiencing poorer health outcomes.

Download the application now and mobilize local groups to work together and display on a national stage the people and projects that make your community a great place to live, work and play.

Details and Dates
Applications on behalf of cities, counties, towns, or tribes are due March 5, 2019. Leaders from local government, schools, nonprofits, community foundations, libraries, chambers of commerce and youth have all led their communities to win the All-America City Award. APPLY NOW!

  • July 2018 – June 2019
    All-America City Promising Practices Webinar Series
  • Nov. 14, 2018
    Letter of Intent due (not required to apply)
  • March 5, 2019
    Application Due
  • April 2019
    Finalists Announced
  • June 21 – 23, 2019
    Awards Competition and Conference

Want to submit a competitive application? Watch the webinar recording below to hear 2018 All-America City winners, Kershaw County, SC and Las Vegas, NV, present on their All-America City journey with tips for applying, the types of projects they submitted and an update on the benefits they have seen from winning the award.

You can find the original version of this announcement on the National Civic League’s site at www.nationalcivicleague.org/creating-healthy-communities-through-inclusive-civic-engagement/.